Mike-C:
contractdriver:
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We’re basically paying a company money, so we can do a course (conducted by someone in a classroom who hasn’t done the job) to say we are supposedly trained so it take’s away the liability (the blame) from that company in the event of an accident!
Employers usually pay this for their employees. You’re a contractor ? So who is “we” ?
Mike, it seems you’re trying to deviate from a subject which i think has good cause for comment and discussion.
You’re asking me some strange questions of which i will try my best to answer.
Q1) You’re a contractor. My username is Contract Driver. I’m a Class 1 lorry driver and employ other lorry drivers to drive for my company. I drove a Class 1 lorry 30 years ago, i drove one yesterday and i will be driving a lorry next week.
I might be driving a 7.5 ton, Class 2 or Class 1, i might be using flatbed, fridge, tipper, double decker, low loader, curtainsider, box van or walking floor trailer, but it seems because you think I’m a contractor (Contractor: a business or corporation which provides transport services to another entity under terms specified in a contract) and also an agency driver (Horror of horrors!), my comment isn’t worthy.
If i was a a van driver, 7.5 ton driver, a lorry driver, a haulage contractor, an agency driver, a driving agency, small haulage company or massive logistics business we would all still have to pay these exorbitant fees to some ‘‘made up safety body’’ to pass a classroom test and get a card, which we must show a security guy, just to enter a worksite. (sometimes we need two cards from two completely different non government ‘‘safety bodies’’. CSCS and MPQC springs to mind for some building sites!)
Q2) Definition of We: ‘‘We’’ can used by a person to refer to himself, or herself and one or more other people considered together.
I would consider myself to be part of the trucknet group. I have made a few good friends and gained lots of information over the years directly from this forum. I used the we as in ‘‘We are all in it together’’.
I hope that answers your questions without being too patronising.
Back to the subject.
The ‘‘MPQC driver skills card’’ (I have no idea how you gain a ‘‘driver skill’’ sitting in a classroom) is needed to get onto several quarry sites. I want to do the work, so it looks like I’m going to have to do the classroom course which costs either £84 + VAT if my company pays or £156 (£180 on weekends!) if i go as an independent Agency Driver!. One benefit is that It gives 7 hrs towards the DCPC.
It’s about time we had some proper ‘‘hands on’’ practical skills training courses where lorry drivers actually get outside (in the wind, rain and snow if need be) and get their hands dirty operating equipment as CAV551 above was writing about, instead of this cosy classroom, pay us some money, with a practically guaranteed pass and a shiny card for which your skill lasts for 5 years, before you have to pay us for that skill again.
P.S. Isn’t it about time Truck Net moved on and gave the Agency freelancers and agency drivers their own Truck Net forum column? The world has moved on, road haulage has changed and ‘‘we’’ all know many of the drivers on here are actually agency and freelance or contract drivers (only because we can’t get a proper job 
) who are happy to help each other out where we can.
